Launching That First (Successful) Influencer Campaign

As the marketing brains behind any brand, you always want a leg up on the competition. So it’s smart to consider the launching of influencer campaigns, where people with big followings on various social media platforms promote your brand on your behalf. The power of these influencers has translated to 94 % saying that they find influencer campaigns to be an effective practice.

Here’s some advice:

Know your audience

Right now you might be thinking, “Yeah, no kidding,” because the consideration of who you’re marketing toward is probably among the very first things you do in any campaign build. However, zeroing in on a target audience is doubly important with influencer campaigns because there’s a third-party involved, the influencers themselves, which adds a layer between the brand and the people you’re trying to reach.

Choose your influencer

Now that you’ve figured out exactly who it is that you’re targeting, find out who has access to them on social media. The first way to do this is to simply see how many followers they have. Obviously, a big following should translate to greater message exposure, but there’s still much more research to be done.

Say you have a new deodorant on the market, and you want to target men aged between 27-34. An edgy, up-and-coming independent film actor might not have the overall following a teenybopper pop music queen has, but what good would it do if few men in their late 20s and early 30s have never even heard of her? Numbers are great, but only if it’s the right audience.

Comb your prospective influencers’ followings to see if people in your target audience are interested in their posts, and engage the posts with “likes,” reposts and comments. Find an amiable balance between social media following and demographics.

Set campaign goals

Like any campaign you’ll have to estimate a return on your investment, which will depend largely on the influencer’s following. Of course there are budget concerns here, too, as some charge more than others for their services, along with other considerations that vary from campaign to campaign, brand to brand. But ultimately you have to figure out what you want out of this influencer, and that doesn’t necessarily have to be sales. It could simply be greater brand recognition, a boost in social media followers or other #goals.

Customize your message to suit the influencer

You can’t fool social media followers. People respond to authenticity the most—which partially explains the appeal of Instagrammed home-cooked meals, for example. So when your influencer promotes your brand, their conveying of your message needs to appear as organic a delivery as possible. Maybe they’ve never used your deodorant before, that’s fine. But by the time the influencer is posting about it, the ad had better look and feel as though they have. This takes time and patience. Your brand has a “voice,” but so do the influencers. Make sure the voices match up in the campaign’s posts, whatever the platform.

Say you have a new deodorant on the market, and you want to target men aged between 27 and 34. An edgy, up-and-coming independent film actor might not have the overall following a teenybopper pop music queen has, but what good would it do if few men in their late 20s and early 30s have never even heard of her? Numbers are great, but only if it’s the right audience.

Comb your prospective influencers’ followings to see if people in your target audience are interested in their posts, and engage the posts with “likes,” reposts and comments. Find an amiable balance between social media following and demographics.